OK, it's going to a be a quick and disjointed column today, because I have to get tomorrow's Friday column done early tonight. So we return to the "three-dot column" format pioneered by the intrepid Herb Caen of San Francisco newspaper fame (who also famously coined the term "beatnik," by the way...). Today, we've got two Sputnik footnotes, a Sarah Palin chuckle, and a quick note on Obama's "ask the president a question on YouTube" session. Without further ado...

... President Obama gave a speech yesterday in a town called Manitowoc, Wisconsin. In it, he said the following (from the official White House transcript):

So I came here to Manitowoc to glimpse that future. It was right here, almost 50 years ago -- I couldn't have made this up. It wasn't until I was on my way here that I found out that a chunk of metal came crashing down to the Earth right here. I promise you, we did not plan this originally. Press won't believe me. It turns out that it was part of a satellite called Sputnik that landed right here, and that set the Space Race into motion. So I want to say to you today that it is here, more than 50 years later, that the race for the 21st century will be won.

Now, it is believable that the president himself was unaware of the Sputnik connection to Manitowoc. It is downright inconceivable that his staff did not -- unless it can be proven that this event was planned before the president's "Sputnik moment" speech in early December was written. But that's a minor quibble.

Actually, that's just my "first minor quibble." My main point is pretty much a minor quibble, too, I have to admit.

A piece of a Sputnik satellite did come crashing down on the streets (literally, it half-buried itself in the pavement) of Manitowoc, Wisconsin, on September 5, 1962. Notice, though, that I said "a" Sputnik -- and that the president also very carefully worded his reference as "a satellite called Sputnik." There's a reason for this, and the reason is that what fell to earth in Manitowoc was actually part of Sputnik IV. The term "Sputnik" was used for many different satellites, much as "Apollo" doesn't refer to a single launch. The "Sputnik moment" Obama has been talking about, however, happened in 1957, when Sputnik I was launched. Sputnik I lasted less than three months in orbit before it burned up re-entering the Earth's atmosphere.

Some in the media missed the distinction. From the Associated Press story on the event:

The challenge resonated in Manitowoc, a small city on the shores of Lake Michigan known best as the place where a 20-pound chunk of the Sputnik satellite crashed in 1962, an event marked by an annual "Sputnikfest." Obama insisted he hadn't known of the Sputnik connection when he picked Manitowoc as the first audience for the themes of competitiveness and innovation he will push through his 2012 re-election campaign. But it gave him a fitting backdrop.

Sigh. It takes like five seconds of online research to get your facts straight, guys and gals. Next time, do your homework...

... Speaking of not doing your homework, we have the reigning Queen of Casually Gettin' Stuff Wrong -- Sarah Palin herself -- on what this whole Sputniky thing meant (from her reaction to the State Of The Union speech):

He [President Obama] needs to remember that what happened back then with the former communist U.S.S.R. and their victory in that race to space, yeah, they won, but they also incurred so much debt at the time that it led to the inevitable collapse of the Soviet Union

Wow. I mean, where to begin?

The Soviets didn't actually win the Space Race, that's a good place to start. If it was a football game, they scored early in the first quarter, but then went on to lose the game. Quick quiz for Sarah: What country is the only one who has landed a man on the moon? Hint: The answer is the same as the answer to: "Who 'won' the Space Race?"

As for Sputnik spending being the cause of the "inevitable collapse of the Soviet Union," well, all I can say is Ronald Reagan must be spinning in his grave over that gross factual error.

Unless, to Sarah Palin "...at that time..." means something like "the years between 1957 and 1989"... or something... it's hard to tell, at times...

... But since we don't want to hurt Sarah's feelings, I have to at least give her credit for a good one-liner from her interview:

His theme last night in the State of the Union was the WTF -- Winning The Future. I thought: OK. That acronym? Spot on. There were a lot of WTF moments throughout that speech.

Heh. OK, Sarah, that was funny, even I will admit. Love her or hate her, you've got to give her credit for her strongest feature: boiling down a snarky thought into a catchy phrase. So even if I don't agree with her one tiny bit, I do have to tip my hat to her cleverness. Like I said, it was a good one-liner.

And you'd think people in Washington would have learned to check acronyms by now...

... Lastly, it seems like every time President Obama opens up the floor to the American public to send him questions, the marijuana advocates vote one of their questions into first place. Must be a lot of them online, or something.

This year, once again, the number one question (with twice as many votes as the second-place question) was on marijuana policy. Obama's answer was a whole lot better than his previous dismissals of such questions as nothing more than a joke:

I think this is a entirely legitimate topic for debate. I am not in favor of legalization. I am a strong believer that we need to think more about drugs as a public health problem.

I have written about this previously, the first time Obama called for an open question session, where I posed the question I would have asked:

"President Obama... seeing as how one-fourth of the states have made medical marijuana legal, how can you justify on scientific grounds the continued listing of marijuana as a Schedule I drug and not under Schedule II? Are you committed to bring your science-based philosophy into the realm of federal drug policy, or will you allow politics to dictate such decisions, as in the recent past?"

Since the president has now decreed that this is an "entirely legitimate topic for debate," I would strongly encourage some intrepid reporter to ask this very question...

... And, today, we must end where we began. From Wikipedia, on the etymology of "beatnik" (emphasis added):

The word "beatnik" was coined by Herb Caen in an article in the San Francisco Chronicle on April 2, 1958. Caen coined the term by adding the Russian suffix -nik after Sputnik I to the Beat Generation. Caen's column with the word came six months after the launch of Sputnik. Objecting to Caen's twist on the term, Allen Ginsberg wrote to the New York Times to deplore "the foul word beatnik," commenting, "If beatniks and not illuminated Beat poets overrun this country, they will have been created not by Kerouac but by industries of mass communication which continue to brainwash man."

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant